What do our faith communities need to learn about in order to better serve the world around us? On Wednesday, April 23rd, twenty-one clergy and lay leaders from Columbus met to try to answer that question. We were a diverse group, including Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Reconstructionist Jews, Unitarian Universalists, Buddhist Christians, and progressive Evangelicals. It was a powerful question, and one that sparked a lot of energy. The answers we provided are displayed in a mind map below.
This new Ministerium of Ideas found its inspiration in the work of Bob Russell, who for more than thirty years gathered Columbus clergy in a Friday morning group that was informally dubbed “the church listening to the university.” I attended many wonderful lectures as part of that group, and found myself wondering how we could include more people in it. In this time of great societal change, its important for our faith communities to seek help in understanding and negotiation the shifts in the world around us. Fortunately, the group that gathered on Wednesday agreed.
Going forward, the planning committee (consisting of myself, Lucy Waechter Webb, Ben Iten, Jim Miner, Daniel Webb, and Bob Erickson) will invite speakers and prepare a schedule of talks that will begin in August. E-mail me at campusministries{at}diosohio.org, check back on the Praxis main page to get updates and attend the talks.